The South African government must fast-track its cloud migration and data governance reforms.
This is one of the key digital transformation recommendations outlined by Maropene Ramokgopa, minister in the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation.
Ramokgopa briefed media on Friday, detailing government’s areas of focus in terms of the Medium-Term Development Plan 2024-2029, which is also the programme of action for the seventh administration.
Government has identified the digital transformation agenda as being key to reforming the public service and building a capable and developmental state.
Under the digital transformation efforts, Ramokgopa highlighted government’s focus areas, which include digital identity, integrating database information across departments and the development of an integrated services portal – all of which lend themselves to greater use of cloud.
Forrester research reveals that governments across the globe continue to adopt cloud to increase digital capacity, be more responsive and meet stakeholder expectations.
The research and consulting services firm found that government leaders take multiple paths to adopting cloud. Based on its 2024 cloud survey, 80% of public cloud decision-makers at government organisations used hybrid cloud, and 71% used multiple public clouds.
However, local government’s move to the cloud has been characterised by a slow start, driven by a lack of strategy for cloud adoption and over-reliance on traditional IT infrastructure, analysts previously pointed out.
Detailing the MyMzansiplatform’s progress, the minister noted that the prototype was launched last year.
The platform is described as a single digital entry point for accessing government services, with the aim to connect digital identities, payments and services.
According to Ramokgopa, digital ID and digital payment reforms are progressing “very well”.
“The rolling out of [digital] IDs will be done by the end of this year,” she indicated. “The part of ‘family tree’ will be digitalised and finalised. We’ll also finalise the issue of citizenship and migration, which is under the MyMzansi citizen platform prototype.”
The minister also noted the MzansiXchange information-sharing pilot is underway.
Last October, National Treasury introduced the MzansiXchange pilot project, which is the data exchange pillar of SA’s digital transformation roadmap.
The government landscape is often characterised by slow, fragmented and siloed systems between departments, entities and other agencies, Treasury director-general Duncan Pieterse highlighted at the time of the launch.
MzanziXchange seeks to address these gaps by creating an environment where data can be shared in a secure, structured and coordinated manner across government, he explained.
To initiate the data exchange pillar, Treasury partnered with Statistics South Africa; the departments of agriculture, land reform and rural development, home affairs, basic education, higher education and training; the Presidency; SARS; South African Social Security Agency; National Student Financial Aid Scheme; Council for Scientific and Industrial Research; and the South African Reserve Bank.
Ramokgopa pointed out that government “also wants to see other departments plugging in, including transport as it relates to issuing licences”.
Other recommendations, she stated, include prioritising high-impact digital services (grant payments and health records), strengthening digital literacy and cyber security capabilities across the state, as well as finalising the digital economy masterplan and associated regulatory updates.
“We also need to ensure we establish TVET colleges and universities that will come up with AI, data governance and cyber security strategies.”
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